November 21, the 4th anniversary of the Maidan, begins in Kyiv with a prayer for the Heavenly Hundred, the protesters killed at Instytutska Street in February 2014, and the victims of earlier shootings, police violence throughout the revolution

According to recent sociological studies, there have been no significant changes in the mood of Ukrainians over the last three years. The scarcity of demonstrations cannot be attributed to loyalty to the current government, but rather to the fact that the opposition is equally far away from understanding what the citizens need and how these needs can be met

High-profile arrests have been expected for a very long time. For over two years now, Ukrainians have been demanding punishment for those in power who were guilty of escalating events on the Maidan and then the war in Donbas. The question “Why aren’t the Regionals being punished?” is hotter than ever, and it’s only recently that the Prosecutor General’s Office has tried to answer it. Now Oleksandr Yefremov, ex-Head of Luhansk Oblast State Administration, then First Deputy Head of the Party of Regions and generally one of the more odious ex-Regionals, is sitting in jail awaiting trial

Although his powers are president of Ukraine are quite limited, over the last two years Petro Poroshenko has learned to use them like a virtuoso, allowing him considerable influence over the legislature and Government

The first speaker of the Seimas of the independent Lithuania and EMP until recently on the way Europe is changing its perception of Russia, the shifting "center of Europeanness", and why it is crucial for Ukrainians to resist disenchantment

The Ukrainian Week spoke to the former deputy chief of the Security Service of Ukraine and current MP about Ukrainian partisans in the Donbas, sabotage in Russia, reforms in the SBU and who it worked for prior to the Maidan.

Live reports for foreign TV are much like navigating a minefield of alien stereotypes, alien influences, alien prejudices and alien interests. Things are further complicated by the spiteful foreign language that just keeps picking all the wrong words out of memory, as you feverishly fish for the right ones.

Without grassroots organization and political parties funded by membership dues, Ukrainians will find themselves disappointed once again by self-serving political leaders. Even worse, the country could face further degradation or loss of sovereignty

The Maidan became both a tourist destination and a place where foreigners, who are not indifferent to the fate of Ukraine, gathered. The flags that flew above it were from various countries, not only those of Ukraine and the EU. The heroes of Nebesna Sotnya - the Heaven Hundred - also include the citizens of other countries. How did, and do, foreigners view the Maidan?

“People often come to museums in the Netherlands. Just to hide away from the rain,” Yulia Lytvynets, Chief Custodian of Ukraine’s National Art Museum, says. The recent revolutionary events changed the angle from which her museum’s staff approached preserving the collection and the museum building and building horizontal relationships between museums and individuals.

There are reasons to believe that officers of the Federal Security Service of Russian Federation (FSB) were involved in the planning and implementation of the so-called antiterrorist operations in Kyiv during the mass protests on Maidan in February, Ukrainian Security Service Chief (SBU) Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said during the press-conference on April, 3rd.

The ideas of 1789 – liberty, equality and fraternity – made an indelible impression on the memories of nations and many democratic constitutions to this very day. The same fate also awaits the ideas of the EuroMaidan: liberty, dignity and truth.

It was bitter on the one hand. The West didn’t support us… Kept waiting… Negotiating… On the other hand, what did we expect? Did we hope that Europe would immediately side with the Maidan, believe in Ukrainian civil society and press the tyrant out of power? Firstly, that is not how things are done in international politics. Secondly, European officials had every reason to be skeptical.

The word “knockout” aptly describes the sentiments now prevalent in the Donbas. Total confusion and shock. Alarming rumours about trainloads of heavily armed extremists from Western Ukraine heading for Donetsk. It is as if you are reading Mikhail Bulgakov’s White Guard.

Andrew Wilson is a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a permanent Reader in Ukrainian Studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), University College London. He shared his views with The Ukrainian Week on the prospects for rapid reform in Ukraine, on the inadequate reaction of the West to the usurpation of power by Viktor Yanukovych and the absence of the rule of law, both under the Orange government and under that of Yanukovych.

The Ukrainian Week speaks to Volodymyr Vasylenko, expert in international law and former Ambassador of Ukraine, about Viktor Yanukovych’s responsibility for crimes against Ukrainian people, grounds for prosecution by the International Criminal Court in Hague and actual assistance the West can provide to Ukraine today

Thousands of pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine demonstrators duelled in Crimea’s capital on Wednesday, heightening concerns about unrest in the region following the change in government in Kiev, Financial Times reports.

In early February, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muižnieks paid an urgent visit to Ukraine to assess the situation with human rights, including the way law enfrocers treated protesters, in Kyiv and regions. Based on his visit, a report will be drafted to be presented to the CoE Committee of Ministers. The Ukrainian Week talks to Mr. Muižnieks about his preliminary findings back in Strasbourg

Opposition leaders and Viktor Yanukovych signed the Agreement to Regulate the Crisis in Ukraine at the Presidential Administration on February 21. The text has been promulgated by the President's press-service

On February 19, the US imposed visa bans on senior Ukrainian government officials believed to be responsible for a violent crackdown by riot police against protesters, a senior State Department official said, as quoted by Reuters

From 10.20 a.m. on February 18, 2014, by 6 a.m. on February 19, 2014, 351 protesters called for medical aid, Kyiv City State Administration reports based on information from the Administration Health Care Department

Protesters have begun to take away a part of the barricade on Hrushevskoho Street where major clashes took place on January 19-22; MP Arsen Avakov said that activists would set up a checkpoint at Hrushevskoho and free the Kyiv City State Administration and four oblast state administrations by morning; four Maidan activists are still in detention centers; the opposition claims that the Maidan is not going anywhere; titushky have made another attempt to demolish barricades on Khreshchatyk; a resolution was submitted to the US Senate calling on immediate sanctions against Ukraine; the Maidan is preparing for peaceful pressure on Parliament

The size and persistence of the protest movement that started in November has been amazing and admirable. I think it has greatly surprised not only almost all international observers but also most Ukrainian political and civil society activists

What is happening in Ukraine is a direct reaction to the lack of consideration of the authorities for the aspirations of its citizens to be part of Europe and to live in a country governed in accordance with democratic principles and respect for human rights

The list of wanted activists includes the son of MP Anatoliy Hrytsenko, Oleksiy Hrytsenko; and AutoMaidan activists Dmytro Bulatov and Serhiy Koba, the Interior Ministry’s statement on its website says

The Ukrainian State was the impossible dream of grandparents and something the parents sacrificed their lives and comfort for. For the Ukrainian leadership, it is nothing but a temporary resource of personal wealth

The title of this opinion piece does ring a bell, doesn’t it? It was Slavoj Žižek who said these words when he was asked to assess the USA and NATO bombing of Serbia during the war in the former Yugoslavia. Whereas quite a few public intellectuals and thinkers in Europe had second thoughts on NATO operations, the Slovenian philosopher didn’t bother to search for a softer phrase: “Too little and too late"

US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt: “The situation today is not hopeless, but it requires tough decisions from the Ukrainian Government regarding a number of issues, which have been put off for far too long”

There are still many optimists who consider Yanukovych to be just a corrupt paranoid, who can be controlled by the oligarchy who are interested in accessing EU markets. Actually, Yanukovych is seeking violence as a way of pay back, revenge for his 2004 failure. He is using the whole state apparatus for this. He will keep talking about dialogue, but there are no democratic institutions for a dialogue in Ukraine as he usurped power back in 2010

The EuroMaidan began as a protest against President Yanukovych’s decision to disrupt the Association Agreement with the EU. Over the past two months, it has escalated into resistance to the government and President Yanukovych himself

A delegation from the European Parliament will visit Ukraine on January 28–30 to examine the situation surrounding the EuroMaidan first-hand. Meetings are planned with the Ukrainian leadership, opposition representatives and,k first and foremost, with the Presidium of the EuroMaidan

The Ukrainian Week talks to Viktor Musiyaka, one of the authors of the Constitution of Ukraine and a professor at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, about the current events. Far from giving a comforting opinion, the professor offers specific guidelines for overcoming the deep political crisis.

Family members recognize Maidan activist Yuriy Verbytskyi kidnapped earlier from the hospital in Kyiv along with Kyiv-based activist Ihor Lutsenko in the body found in a forest in Boryspil Raion, Hanna Hrabarska wrote on her Facebook page referring to Yuriy’s niece

Representatives of the Maidan NGO were not present at the talks with National Security and Defence Council Chair Andriy Kliuyev, Advisor to President Andriy Portnov and Justice Minister Olena Lukash assigned to seek a solution to the current crisis in negotiations with the civil society and opposition by President Yanukovych, says ex-Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko

Vitaliy Klitschko and Andriy Parubiy guarantee officers no persecution and the right to serve in posts equivalent to the ones they hold now should they withdraw and cease all forceful actions demanded by Yanukovych in a written statement posted on the EuroMaydan account in Facebook

“The Steering Committee of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum calls upon the European Union to cease all financial assistance to the government of Ukraine, and to impose a travel ban on all 239 Ukrainian MPs who voted on 16 January 2014 for authoritarian new laws,” the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum’s Statement on repressive laws in Ukraine and Azerbaijan claims.

Appeals for targeted sanctions against Ukrainian officials responsible for the violent crackdown of peaceful demonstrations and the use of force and persecution against journalists and protesters figure high in the messages of Ukrainian opposition, civil society and protesters of EuroMaidan to the West, in particular to the U.S. and to the EU. Apart from Yanukovych, his family members and state officials, the protesters call on the West to include business elites, so called oligarchs, supporting Yanukovych’s regime in the list of sanctioned individuals.

Yuriy Lutsenko, leader of the Third Ukrainian Republic initiative and politically persecuted ex-Interior Minister in Yulia Tymoshenko’s Cabinet, is beaten and injured by Berkut riot police in the clashes on the night of January 10-11. Ten more people are injured, five taken to hospitals.

The representatives of Ukrainian diaspora in the United States has met with the Obama administration representative on Friday (January, 3rd) and discussed the possible steps to respond on the growing oppression of the democracy in Ukraine, Ukrayins’ka Pravda reports.

The oppositional MP from “Svoboda” party Andriy Illienko and party activist and lawyer Sydir Kizin were assaulted on Friday night (January,3rd) in the latest in a series of violent attacks on the demonstrations' organizers.

World academics and intellectuals called on their governments and international organisations to support Ukrainians in their efforts to put an end to a corrupt and brutal regime and to the geopolitical vulnerability of their country. Their appeal was published on the website of The Guardian.

Putin cannot be faulted for skillfully pursuing his interpretation of Russian interests. The blame for the outcome in Ukraine falls squarely on the EU’s leaders, because if Ukraine does lose its independence in one way or another, European security will be at risk – a risk nowhere more keenly felt than in Poland and the Baltic states, Joschka Fischer, german Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor from 1998-2005, says in his article for Project Syndicate.